MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro - Ultraportable 15.6-inch gaming all-rounder

The thinnest and lightest 15.6-inch gaming notebook gets refreshed

Serious gamers often have very specific requirements when it comes to their desktop rigs: from choosing the perfect display, CPU, GPU, keyboard, mouse, down to the most reliable power supply and aesthetically pleasing case. But these systems are designed to be stationary, and as more and more gamers get together for competitions and leisurely LAN parties, the consideration for purchasing a notebook capable of running graphics intensive games starts to arise.

Manufacturers have responded to this increasing demand, and brands known more for their components, such as MSI and Gigabyte, have started releasing gaming notebooks for this niche market. Razer, generally known as a gaming peripherals manufacturer, has also started selling gaming notebooks.

While gaming notebooks in the past have been bulky and unwieldy due to the lack of compact yet powerful components, thin gaming notebooks are now becoming more common, with the introduction of more power efficient processors, such as Intel’s Haswell chips, and the decreasing prices of smaller, speedier flash storage options.

With the release of NVIDIA’s latest GeForce 800M GPUs, various flagship models from a variety of brands have been refreshed and updated. Among them is MSI's GS60 range. Following in the footsteps of MSI's refreshed GS70 Stealth slim gaming notebook, the new MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro is a 15.6-inch, Full HD model that now boasts an NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M graphics chip.

Our review unit comes with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M GDDR5 with 3GB of dedicated video memory, fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor clocked at 2.4GHz, and 16GB DDR3L RAM. It sports a Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixel resolution) anti-glare display, suitable for media consumption and, of course, gaming. For pixel lovers, there's also a GS60 2PE Ghost Pro 3K Edition with a WQHD+ resolution (2880 x 1620 pixels), and possibly even a 4K Edition as seen at Computex 2014.

Design and Features

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro shares a similar design language to its bigger brother, the GS70 Stealth. It has a brushed metallic effect on its magnesium-lithium alloy chassis, which adds a premium look and feel while keeping its weight a hair below 2kg. We were surprised when we lifted it out of the box, as it felt more like an Ultrabook in our hands than a high spec gaming machine.

The metal alloy surrounds the keyboard and trackpad, while the display bezel has a matte finish. The entire notebook is dressed in a uniform black color and, if not for the iconic MSI logo and the words "Gaming Series", one might mistake this beauty for a high-end business laptop.

A bonus point goes to the GS60's hinge mechanism that allows users to open the laptop with one hand, while the keyboard (and the rest of the notebook) stay firmly planted onto the table. The hinge feels smooth yet rigid; we never once felt that it was loose or worried that the display would not remain in our preferred angle. The display itself, however, had quite a bit of flex due to its thin profile even though the notebook used a metal alloy. This isn't anything unusual because we've handled several Sony notebooks in the past that boast a carbon fiber build (such as the Vaio Z and the more recent Vaio Pro series), but in fact flex in certain areas due to their thin build.

Despite the overall lack of bulk, the GS60 packs all of the essential ports that one might need on the go: three USB 3.0 ports for fast file transfers, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort for connecting to external display(s), audio jacks for external speakers and/or microphones, and a Kensington Security Slot for theft deterrence. A small annoyance, however, was that the power cable connects to the notebook on the left side instead of at the rear, where a user could forget about it once he or she has settled down. The power cable effectively blocks the Kensington Security Slot and we felt that there was a lack of attention to detail for the placement of the ports due to the aim of making the GS60 as thin as possible.

The onboard speaker by Dynaudio provides a very good sound stage that is worth a mention. While it is a step below the dual front-facing speakers of its larger brother, the 17-inch GS70 2PE Stealth Pro, it still provides substantial volume and an excellent stereo effect.

Keyboard, Trackpad & Mouse

As with other MSI gaming notebooks, the keyboard is designed by Steelseries, and includes a head-turning rainbow-backlight option. Overall, the keyboard provides a pleasant experience to type on, and is rather quiet, although users who like the 'clicky' feel of certain mechanical switches may be disappointed with its lack of tactile feedback. The Windows key has been moved away from the "golden triangle" region to the right side of the keyboard, to prevent accidentally switching to the Start Screen when using the WASD keys.

The colors of the backlight can be controlled with the included software, which lets you set different profiles so you can have a set of colors for typing and another set of colors for gaming. There are three zones on the keyboard that users can customize the color for, and you can also set animation effects, such as ‘Breathing’ or ‘Wave’ so the backlight changes color on its own.

Our review unit came with the MSI S12-0400C10-AA3 ambidextrous gaming mouse in the box, which was a nice surprise. It is by no means a top-of-the-line peripheral, but it always feels good to receive an extra input device. Optional software (in a disc) is included to customize the mouse buttons and sensitivity settings, but since the GS60 does not come with an optical drive, downloading it from the MSI official website made more sense to us.

If you are a trackpad person, you won’t be disappointed either. While it's not a glass trackpad, it is plenty spacious. The trackpad is a clickpad, which means it doesn't have any dedicated left or right click buttons. This design saves space, but on the downside, it is possible to accidentally click the pad with your palm if it hits the corners of the touchpad in a typical typing position.

Performance Benchmarks

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro is running on the newest Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4GHz processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M GPU. For comparison we will be pitting it up against two other notebooks with GTX 800M series graphics chips: the Aftershock XG17-V2 and the MSI GS70 2PE Stealth Pro, the bigger 'daddy' of the GS60. In the more 'compact' segment, we will be comparing the GS60 with the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p and the Razer Blade. We were unable to secure the new Razer Blade with GTX 870M GPU at press time, but it nevertheless provides a good benchmark of what last year's notebooks are capable of.

PCMark 8

We ran PCMark 8 on all of the machines and noted the scores on four benchmarks: Home, Creative, Work and Storage to see how the notebooks perform in regular usage scenarios, ranging from web browsing, document writing, video encoding, photo editing and casual gaming. The Home benchmark gives an idea of overall performance through a combination of the mentioned tasks. We also included scores of the Adobe CS6 and Microsoft Office benchmarks to get a gauge of each machine's performance on these commonly used applications.

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro scored well in most benchmarks, although it was slightly behind on the Home benchmark, even when compared to the older models. It redeemed itself in the Adobe CS6 and Microsoft Office benchmarks, showing good performance when running common applications. With similar fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processors, similar amounts of RAM and speedy SSDs, there is no significant advantage of the GS60 2PE compared to a previous generation gaming notebook running on SSD such as the Razer Blade (2013). What's more interesting is the similarly specced 17-inch counterpart from MSI delivering better results across. This might be a case of better cooling found on a larger notebook which helps it run cooler and thus allowing Intel's processors to Turbo Boost more and delivering better results.

3DMark 2013

3DMark 2013 is a synthetic benchmark designed to test a notebook's graphics and gaming capabilities. For a more in-depth understanding of 3DMark 2013, please refer to our article "3DMark (2013) - Notebook GPU Performance Review". We'll be running our notebooks through two benchmarks:

• Cloud Gate is designed for integrated GPUs and utilizes a DirectX 11 engine limited to Direct3D feature level 10 (equivalent to DirectX 10) with a heavy emphasis on geometry, heavy post processing, particle effects, and volumetric illumination.
• Fire Strike serves as a showcase for DirectX 11 features, utilizing a grueling two-part test with extreme levels of tessellation and volumetric illumination, as well as complex smoke simulation using compute shaders and dynamic particle illumination.

Surprisingly, this time around, the GS60 outperformed its 17-inch big brother, the GS70, by about 5% and 10% in the Cloud Gate and Fire Strike benchmarks respectively. Compared to the older notebooks, the NVIDIA GTX 800M series GPUs showed a huge boost in performance compared to the older 700M series that the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p and the Razer Blade (2013) have.

Crysis 2

Crysis 2 puts GPUs through their paces with a grueling test of tessellation, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, water rendering, and particle motion blur and shadowing. We tested the notebooks on Very High and Ultra settings, and because the display of the Razer Blade (2013) is not Full HD, we hooked it up to an external FHD monitor for a more thorough comparison.

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro and the GS70 Stealth Pro again take the lead with the powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M GPU, while the Aftershock XG17-V2 with a slightly lower tier GTX 860M fares about 20% worse than the GS60 in Ultra settings, although it still manages an average frame rate of more than 30 FPS. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p and Razer Blade, as expected, fared the worst with their previous generation NVIDIA GTX 700M series GPUs.

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is a fairly challenging benchmark running on a heavily-modified Crystal Engine. Besides hardware tessellation and DirectCompute, other render technologies like depth of field, high definition ambient occlusion, and contact-hardening shadows are used during the benchmark. We tested the notebooks on Normal and High settings, and similar to the Crysis 2 benchmark test, we connected the Razer Blade to an external Full HD monitor for a better comparison at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro and the GS70 2PE Stealth Pro both handled Tomb Raider well on their NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M GPUs, peaking at more than 120 FPS at Normal settings and more than 80 FPS at High settings. The Aftershock XG17-V2 did well too, considering that it houses a lower end GTX 860M and half the RAM (8GB compared to 16GB of the MSI notebooks). The performance of the GTX 800M series graphics chips are apparent in this benchmark test, where the GS60 records more than double the frame rate compared to the Razer Blade (2013) which has a last-gen GTX 765M GPU.

Battery Performance

While the MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro is only 1.96kg, it has a fairly small capacity 52Wh battery, which put it at a disadvantage on paper when compared to the Razer Blade at 1.9kg with a 70Wh battery. Our benchmarks reflect our predictions: the GS60 only managed 2 hours and 21 minutes, just marginally better than the Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p. The other three notebooks all lasted longer, with the Aftershock XG17-V2 going for 3 hours 32 minutes on its massive 76.96Wh battery.

When looking at power consumption, the GS60 actually doesn't fare too badly with a power consumption of 22.1 watts, which puts it in line with the rest of our notebooks. Its poor battery life is solely due to its small capacity battery that it could fit in its slim chassis.

Portability Index

Our Portability Index factors in battery life, weight and volume so you can see which notebook is the most worthwhile to carry around. The MSI GS60 is a compact and lightweight gaming notebook in the 15-inch category, but unfortunately with its meagre 52Wh battery, it scores much lower than the comparable Razer Blade, at about half the score. The Aftershock XG17-V2 and Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p were not designed with extreme portability in mind, and due to their bulk, they have a much lower portability ratio as well.

Conclusion

The MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro is a beautiful, sleek and lightweight gaming notebook. The thinness of the display panel does result in some flex, but the rest of the machine feels sturdy and dependable.

It performs as expected of a high-end model with top of the line specifications, scoring especially well when it comes to actual game play with excellent frame rates. While only 1.96kg, it still packs a huge punch without any of the physical bulk, and  we would recommend this sleek machine for gamers who are specifically looking for a notebook of this display size that has up-to-date specs and is easy to carry around, either as a first gaming notebook or a replacement for a bulkier one that is about two to three years old or more.

The external qualities of a notebook matter almost as much as its performance components, especially for users who wants their machine to be the only thing they bring with them, sans gaming mouse, keyboard or other peripherals and we feel that the MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro is able to fulfill the expectations of an all-round machine, with its adequate keyboard, roomy trackpad and satisfying audio quality.

When comparing with the competition however, the updated Razer Blade might be a better choice for people who don't mind a slightly smaller screen at 14-inches and can afford a few hundred dollars more. The Razer Blade is thinner, lighter and has a significantly better battery life (as seen in last year's edition). However, one thing that Razer did not include is an extra HDD for media storage. The MSI GS60 comes with an additional 1TB HDD at a lower price.

What about another major brand, Gigabyte? In the 15-inch category, they have released the P35W v2, but unfortunately we do not have one on hand at press time. With a thinness of 20.9mm and weight of 2.16kg, it is just slightly bigger and heavier than the GS60; definitely worth checking out if you plan to make your way down to a store to view some potential purchases in person.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.